The Hidden Power of Smiling by Ron Gutman

Over the course of the weekend, the always insightful IsabelleAyel shared across, over in Google Plus, an amazingly inspiring thread by RonJeffries about one of those TED Talks that can surely change the way we all see things in life. TED Talks are usually just like that. A good bunch of them can surely aim at transforming the way we see and experience things in our lives and manage to make it through. The one that both Isabelle and Ron shared across a couple of days back surely is one of those and on one of my favourite topics, too!: The Hidden Power of Smiling by RonGutman.

Indeed! If you can spare a little bit over 7 minutes, you are off to an amazing trip by Ron Gutman where he talks about some of the recent research that’s been done around the topic of smiling and the kinds of benefits it can have in all of us, going from increasing our life timespan the more we keep smiling, to improving our overall well-being and that one of those around us. Never before were we probably going to consider how such a simple gesture as smiling, both at people and things, something we can all *do* at any given point in time, would have such a comforting set of rewards.

“The Hidden Power of Smiling” surely deserves this week’s spot for “Inspiring Video of the Week“, not only for the many insights shared across about how beneficial smiling can well be for all of us, but, mostly, because this is certainly one of those TED Talks to save for later, specially for those moments where we may need it the most! Ron does a beautiful job at reminding us all how, way before we are all born, we were already smiling big time, so why put a stop to it, as we grow older? Where have we gone wrong? Most importantly, what can we do to bring it back into our daily lives? I am not sure what you would all think, but after watching it, there is only one single thing that I just can’t get out of my head at the moment: to keep smiling! That’s just how powerful this TED Talk is, and, like I said, if you have got 7 minutes to spare and would want to cheer yourself up or just simply be reminded about why you need to keep on smiling, no matter what, and the more, the better, then this would be the Talk to check out:

I can strongly recommend it to everyone out there who would want to find out plenty more about some of the traits and amazing qualities that have certainly differentiated us from all other species. It’s just one of those rather touching and inspiring Talks difficult to forget. Oh, and if you would want to find out plenty more what passion and creativity are all about and how technology can impact something so relatively traditional like dancing, allow me to suggest as well you watch this other TED Talk (A bit over 17 minutes long) on “The LXD: In the Internet Age, Dance Evolves…“, which I am sure is going to put a couple of lovely smiles on your face, as well experiencing plenty of WOW moments!

Not too bad for inspiring videos of the week, don’t you think? Well, keep on smiling, you know, you will live longer!, and in the meanwhile get on with some of those moves, too! They look like some pretty good fun, too! Although for me, I think I’ll just stick around with the smiling part … 😀

Related Articles

9 comments

Luis, even without clicking through to watch the videos yet, I must share my own story and lesson learned about smiling. I attended a retreat last month and one of the lessons was ‘Smile more.’ 😀

I returned home on a Sunday. Went to work on Monday and practiced smiling at all times, even while sitting and reading ema*l. 😉 And I was replacing a document in my beloved internal community software, software that I know backwards and forwards. And an error popped up. And my reaction was a curious, “Ah…..?” This was amazing to me – my ‘normal’ reaction would have been an irritated “What???” (as in WTF?) I attribute this difference in attitude and reaction to the smiling. Powerful stuff!

Hi Trisha! WOW!! That’s just such a wonderful story! I am really glad you have made the time to share it on this blog and show / demonstrate the power of smiling! I will keep an eye on it next time around I may bump into tech problems, as I am sure it will have the same effect you mentioned above! W00t!!

With that lovely story, you will be enjoying the videos, I am pretty sure! I will be looking forward to that weekend retreat myself in a few days, where I am hoping to exercise plenty more my smiley muscles!! hehe

Great post!!! Makes me appreciate every day with my wife and 3 month old baby Sebastian!! He brings us so many smiles and really helps us enjoy life. I totally agree that smiling is soooo important and something that is a big focus for us in our Service Desks. Smiling whilst helping our clients adds to the wonderful customer service we can deliver!!

Hi Nath! Great story, indeed! I can imagine how you folks couldn’t get enough of those smiles while at home with baby Sebastian! 😀

It’s pretty amazing how close we are going to relate to this one as well. When I first started working at IBM over 14 years ago, I was also on Customer Support, for the mainframe, then PC, and one of the core courses we all had to attend was on pure customer service skills where one of the main traits we all got out of it was the power of the smile, even while you are on the phone!

It makes a total difference having a smile while talking to people on the phone and I can’t imagine what those days would have been like without that attitude! Looks like old good habits die hard! 😉

Hi Travis! Thanks much for dropping by and for the feedback! Great stuff! I was not aware of the work from Ekman, but will surely be looking into it, as well as that rather interesting book link! Looks right along the alley of stuff I would be interested in! Thanks much for sharing it across and glad you enjoyed the post as well! 🙂